


Brothers of Habit

by Loxxlay



Series: Brothers of Habit (grandthorki) [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bottom Thor, But also ignores infinity war completely lol, Dubious Consent, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Thor and Loki are PLATONIC bros in this but they do have sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but loki bottoms too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:39:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loxxlay/pseuds/Loxxlay
Summary: After months of serving as the Grandmaster’s playthings, Thor and Loki are free. At least, until they find their brotherhood tangled with memories of sex and trauma.





	Brothers of Habit

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so idk what the timeline is, but basically Thor and Loki somehow get re-captured by the Grandmaster sometime post-Ragnarok, and Valkyrie rescues them, so now they are free. It ignores Infinity War lol. 
> 
> This fic is tagged Thorki, but only because they have sex in it - not because they have any (willingly) romantic or sexual feelings towards each other. **I mean Thor &Loki to be platonic brothers (even at the end),** but you're in the privacy of your own home (i hope lol), so read it however you want. Also, there is ValkyriexLoki in this, but it is not the central focus. Loki just needed someone to fuck, and I love her, so.
> 
> Anyway a HUGE thank you to [FiveStillAlive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveStillAlive) (on tumblr, [runnerfivestillalive](http://http://runnerfivestillalive.tumblr.com/)) for beta-ing! It was so helpful. <3 And thank you everyone who encouraged me to write this self-indulgent shit, like damn guys, it's a miracle that I'm posting this right now lol. 
> 
> Enjoy!! <3

In the end, they escaped Sakaar, but they couldn’t escape what had happened.

It was agony to go from having sex every single day to having none at all. There was a sudden, gaping lack of anything to do.

For days, Loki went to sleep alone, and he awoke in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat-soaked sheets, his cock rigid, pre-cum leaking onto the mattress, and the thought of Thor, his brother, fresh from his dreams. The first time, he’d taken a cold shower. The second, a colder shower.

The third time, he let go—he curled his fingers around his cock and used the image of Thor as fuel. After all, there was nothing else to picture as he gasped and trembled and came, billowing seed into his hand. No one else would come to mind.

At the Grandmaster’s whim, Thor had been the primary source of his pleasure for months. A year maybe.

Habits died hard.

...

After officiating a specialized citizen status, the Asgardian refugees had settled into a Midgardian city and scattered amongst a cluster of apartment buildings. Since escaping, Loki didn’t look at or speak to Thor any more than he had to. Which, as their work with the settlement finished, was never. And neither did Thor make an effort to interact with him.

For weeks, they became something entirely unknown. Not comrades, nor brothers, nor bedmates by command. They became strangers.

The loneliness ached.

Chasing distraction, Loki slept with anyone who could be convinced. More often than not, it was the Valkyrie, who both knew how to be brutal and dominant and also understood the Grandmaster and the games he had played. She was the safest option. She knew what Loki had done with Thor; she’d been key in finding them and helping them escape.

(And the Grandmaster was still out there somewhere. Still catching stragglers stumbling into his domain, still forcing innocents into gladiator fights, still inflicting his perverted fantasies on whatever fool agreed—)

Loki forced his eyes open and fixed his attention on the Valkyrie, whose deft fingers teased the edges of his cock into arousal.

She had bound his wrists and ankles to each of the four-cornered bedposts and told him he could only touch himself after she was done. The words had stirred a fire in his gut, burning through his cock, and he still felt it, as she drew him into a frenzy—just one more touch, one more brush of skin-to-skin and he would come—only to leave him rutting helplessly into empty air.

It’d been going for more than an hour.

It still wasn’t enough.

“I’m proud of you, Lackey,” she said with a hooded smile. “You’ve been good. You’ve earned your reward.”

His arousal flared.

It was a fleeting euphoria.

One night, drugged with an eternity of substances and helpless beneath Thor’s fingers, he’d been so hard, so teased, (so disgusted,) that he remembered a high moan pulsing through his lips as he finally—finally ruptured with spend and trembled as the world went a bright white, his ears roaring with unwilling pleasure.

It was a high that he wouldn’t get anywhere else. Not because Thor was any better at this than the Valkyrie—in fact, she was preferable in more ways than one—but because he’d become desensitized. He had lost touch with his body. The jagged cut on his chest from the Kursed, the scars from Thanos, the phantom, debasing touch of the Grandmaster—what did a little physical torment matter anymore? It was just his body. Nothing could reach him any longer.

But Thor—Thor, whom he loved, Thor, who risked realms for him—Thor was something that could still be touched and warped and twisted, and Loki wanted to retch at the thought that he missed the sex ( _the rape_ , his mind whispered) with his own brother.

The Valkyrie had paused. Her hand drifted along his jaw, thumb pressing against his cheek. “Are you alright?”

Her break of character sent an uncomfortable wave of cold through Loki’s veins. “Didn’t you promise a reward?” he said with a suggestive smirk.

She smirked back at him, though her expression looked relieved. “Watch it,” she said. “I can always take it back.”

Still, the Valkyrie settled herself on his lap and lined his cock between her hips. She sank onto him, half-inch by half-inch.

Moaning, Loki clung to feeling of tight, wet warmth closing around his cock. A gasp flooded his throat and arched all the way down his back, and his hips stuttered, greedy and impatient, as she lowered herself down. His stiff fingers gripped the rope binding them, and his mind cleared.

This was it, this was it—

The Valkyrie pulled away a few inches. Then with one sharp thrust, she sheathed the entire length of his cock.

Loki cried out. His bound ankles and wrists writhed, and he tugged at his restraints helplessly.

She thrust their hips together again. And again. And again. His hips rocked to meet hers.

Colored stars danced along his closed eyelids, and Loki’s mind drifted into the dreams always bursting in the back of his mind. Suddenly this was a party on Sakaar, not his bedroom, and it was not Valkyrie’s hot, sweat-slicked flesh pressed against his, but Thor’s.

_“Please,” Loki begged the Grandmaster. “I’ll do anything else. Please not this.”_

_Thor lay beneath him, blindfolded, gagged, and fully nude. The Grandmaster had encouraged Loki to finger his brother, one finger at a time with generous lube, whilst sucking him off. And that was fine. It was normal. By the Grandmaster’s will, Loki had sucked Thor’s cock at least a hundred times, and it wasn’t painful for either of them anymore._

_In fact, touching Thor, sucking Thor, fingering Thor—it was all so normal that he’d hadn’t balked at using such an inordinate amount of lube at all. Not until the Grandmaster had told him what he really wanted.  And Loki should have known it would come to this eventually, but he’d been so desperately opposed to the idea, he hadn’t stopped to think what all the lube was for._

_“You’ll do anything?” the Grandmaster said with a smile._

_Moisture crept into his eyes. Loki nodded, gaze lowered in a show of submission. “Please.”_

_“Aw, well, I’m not used to hearing refusal, dear, but coming from you? Well . . .Well, it’s better than coming from other people. Not everyone. Just, uh, most everyone. So, hmm,” and the Grandmaster’s eyes swept over the two of them, up and down, like they were sculptures to shape and mold. “Hmm. Alright, alright, since you asked so nicely, you don’t have to do it, sweetie. You can just get up and sit over there, and I’ll come join you in a second.” The Grandmaster gestured towards a velvet cushion a few paces away, tucked against the wall._

_Loki hesitated. “And?” he asked, quiet._

_“And what?” the Grandmaster said with a low chuckle. “Aww, is it—are you really so afraid to trust me? I mean what I say. We’ll have some quick fun, and then you’re, uh, you’re free to relax for the rest of the evening.”_

_A sick chill twisted in Loki’s gut. He didn’t move. He knew something was wrong. “And what will you do to Thor?”_

_“Me?” the Grandmaster asked in an innocent voice. “Why, nothing at all, sweetheart. He’s nice to watch, sure, but not really my type otherwise. Besides, didn’t I just say that I’ll be with you?”_

_Loki stared at him, gaze running up the blue shimmery line across his chin, where his lips sat in a tender smile, wrinkling his golden eyes, eyes which looked completely sincere. Over the last few months, Loki had known the Grandmaster to be narcissistic and demanding and shallow, but never a liar—at least, not unless by omission._

_“Well?”_

_Uneasy, Loki glanced at Thor. “So—so we’ll just leave him here, and nothing will happen to him while we’re gone?”_

_“Now, now.” The Grandmaster waggled a finger. “I never said that.”_

_It took a long moment for Loki to guess, but when he did, the chill spread through all of his nerves, prickling every hair along his spine. He exhaled, slow. His stomach clenched._

_“You see,” the Grandmaster said, “it’d be such a shame, wouldn’t it? All that lube and no one to take him?” He smiled at Loki, his hand reaching over to caress Loki’s cheek, tucking a stray strand of black hair behind his ear, as Loki remained perfectly still. “I suppose, if we’ll both be busy, then there are others who will take care of him. Several of my friends have been eying him for weeks now. I don’t see why they shouldn’t have a taste.”_

_Under Loki’s hips, Thor’s muscles went rigid and tense. Loki glanced at his brother only to find his neck bob with a visible swallow and his hands clench into shaking, white fists._

_“It’s such a pity though,” the Grandmaster continued, releasing Loki’s cheek. “You two are brothers, after all, and, uh, you’d probably take good care of him. Be, uh, gentle with him. Such a shame.”_

_With the gag around Thor’s mouth, Loki couldn’t just ask him what he preferred. He could only guess at the way Thor’s legs vibrated with held tension—tension that would not do him any favors when he was fucked by strangers. Loki knew how to relax Thor. He’d done it a hundred times. He knew how to painlessly help a novice through the position for the first time._

_And maybe the Grandmaster’s friends knew those things, too, but more importantly, Loki cared more than anyone else on this barbaric planet._

_He pressed his lips together, eying the lube and Thor’s pink hole and Thor’s still hard cock, erect against his lap. He didn’t want to do this. So much so that he almost cried._

_“Change of heart, dear?” the Grandmaster asked, voice sickly sweet._

_Loki forced himself to smile. It felt small and weak. “I’ll do it.”_

_“Wonderful.” The Grandmaster patted him lightly on his bare back. “That’s what I like to hear.”_

_And maybe it was imagined out of a sense of guilt, but Loki thought he felt Thor’s muscles ease under his weight. He thought maybe Thor’s fists trembled a little less and that his jaw relaxed of tension. Guilt-ridden or not, Loki had nothing else to go on, as he refocused himself on slicking Thor with lube, and scissoring Thor’s entrance wide enough to take his cock._

_It was just sex, he told himself, as he often did. Just their bodies. He could only hope it was what Thor preferred._

_When the time came, he hooked Thor’s leg over his shoulder and lined himself up. He’d go slow. Half-inch by half-inch._

“Loki? Hey, snap out of it.”

Loki blinked and stared at the Valkyrie’s face—her lips parted and her eyes furrowed in concern. He surveyed the feelings of his own body. She had lifted herself off him, but his cock was still hard as ever and not flaccid as he’d hoped. Both of the bonds around his wrists had been undone, and his shoulders ached.

“Why did you stop?” he murmured, hollowed.

Frustration fluttered through her eyelashes.  “Why did I—because you were zoning out! You stopped responding to me at all.”

“So?”

She threw him a disgusted look. “ _So_ ,” she said, “I’m not about to fuck you while you’re not even conscious enough to consent.”

Loki glared at her. “I did consent. I consented an hour ago.”

“That doesn’t mean I can just do whatever I want,” Valkyrie snapped.

“Well, I’m back now,” Loki said, even though he didn’t want to be. He wanted, more than anything, to retreat to that memory and feel Thor’s muscles clench around him and press his chest to his brother’s, sweat-slicked and electric—because it was the only way to prove that the damage was real, that _he_ was real and forever in disrepair. The Valkyrie didn’t move to reattach the shackles, and Loki licked his lips, softened his tone. “I’m back,” he repeated. “I’m paying attention. Can we finish?”

Her mouth set into an unhappy line as she stared at him. Brown hair hung in messy waves down her shoulders. She looked—gentle and soft—exactly what Loki _didn’t_ want. “No,” she said at last. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

With a puff of air, she crawled away and bent to undo the bindings around his ankles.

He wanted to scream at her—something about how she didn’t understand, how she was _ruining_ him with this pity—but it wouldn’t be fair. Besides, his arousal had lessened somewhat in the delay (in her _pity_ ), and it would surely take at least another hour to get him back to the peak moment, where his orgasm would bleed everything away, leaving him in that post-coital bliss of nothingness.

Instead, Loki sat so that his legs hung over the bed. His toes curled into the fluffy fur of the carpet, and his fists gripped the silky bed sheets like a lifeline. His cock throbbed, but the pressure lessened with each passing moment.

Still nude, like him, the Valkyrie sat beside him. “Sorry,” she said in a low murmur.

Loki didn’t look at her.

“I didn’t mean to be so harsh,” she continued. “I just . . .” A sigh flew between her lips. “I don’t care whether what you're asking actually helps or whether it’s something more self-destructive. It’s just—not something I’m willing to do to you. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, I get it,” Loki said, voice clipped.

She sighed again. “I’m not judging you. I’m just telling you what I will and won’t do.”

Loki almost snapped at her again, but he forced himself to inhale one deep breath first. The anger softened. He released the bed sheets to press his elbows to his knees and his hands to his forehead. “I know,” he said, weak and tired. “It’s fine.”

The Valkyrie scooted closer to him, her thigh warm and smooth against his.

They sat like that for a while, in total silence.

And then, she spoke. “Have you talked to him?”

His exhale shuddered through his chest. “No,” he said. He remembered the last time he’d caught a glimpse of Thor, talking to one of his Midgardian friends, a bright, sunny smile on his face as he laughed at some unheard joke. Upon scanning the room, Thor’s single untroubled eye had found Loki watching, struggling for the courage to approach, and Thor’s smile had been wiped clean.

Loki dug his fingers into his scalp. “I don’t think I should. It’ll just make things worse for him.”

“I don’t think so,” the Valkyrie said. “He asks me about you all the time. He misses you.”

“He doesn’t miss me enough to talk to me himself,” Loki said. A wave of bitterness, so cold, washed through him, that he felt his cock relaxing almost entirely.

“Maybe he’s afraid for the same reasons you are,” she said. “Maybe he thinks talking with you will traumatize you all over a—”

Loki unwound his fingers from his hair and glared at her. “I’m not traumatized,” he said.

Valkyrie’s face remained suspiciously still, and with a sickening lurch in his chest, Loki knew she didn’t believe him. “Alright,” she said anyway. “Then maybe he’s trying to give you some space. You said that’s what you wanted, right?”

It was what he had told Thor, some weeks ago, when they’d finally been freed. It was a lie. He didn’t want space. He wanted to succumb. He wanted to sacrifice his control, because he didn’t know what to do or how to feel or what to think with so much freedom. He wanted things to go back to how they were. Horrible, yes. But simple. Straightforward. Mind-numbing.

The space was for Thor’s benefit, not his.

But if Thor wanted closure, if Thor wanted to see him . . .

He turned away from the Valkyrie and stared instead at the wall in front of them. “He told you he misses me?” he asked.

“Mmhmm.”

Loki hesitated. “But what if—” He swallowed, the words too large for his constricting throat. A breath pulsed in his lungs, and Loki choked as he reached for his voice. “What if he finds out—that I—” He couldn’t say it. He released a frustrated breath.

“That you think about what happened during sex?” the Valkyrie finished for him.

Loki nodded in one sharp, jerky movement.

The Valkyrie reached for his chin. Loki flinched, at first, but she persisted until he relaxed into her grip, until his eyes were forced to meet hers. She had one eyebrow raised, and a half-smirk played on her lips, but somehow she made it look solemn. Comforting. Serious. “Do you really think,” she said, “that you're struggling with this alone?”

Loki’s jaw clenched. His eyes darted away.

“He went through it too, Lackey. He’s the last person who would judge you for any of it.” She released his chin and leaned back, watching him, waiting for him to speak.

Sighing, Loki tucked his hands into his lap, wringing his wrists of the residue of ache. He wanted—needed— _starved_ for Thor’s bright, unrelinquishing presence, and her reassurances were cracking through the stone wall he had carved around himself, easing his precautions. And if Thor really missed him . . .  “I suppose if he truly wants to talk to me, then I wouldn’t be opposed.”

The Valkyrie patted him on the back. “Of course he wants to talk to you,” she said.

That was all Loki needed to hear.

…

Loki waited for a chance to find Thor alone.

It was surprisingly difficult. Thor had always charmed everyone around him for as long as Loki could remember, so it was expected that he would have an abundance of friends. However, Loki had not expected Thor to spend every waking minute with them. The longer Loki followed him from the shadows, the more he felt that Thor was avoiding the silence of solitude with all his might.

Only very late at night did Thor retire to his apartment, alone, and Loki didn’t dare approach him there. In the beginning of their capture, they had spent weeks, locked in a bedroom together, to the point where one evening, they’d screamed at each other for an hour, claiming sections of the room like children, until the Grandmaster found them sulking and urged them to forgive and make up on their single king-sized bed.

If they never shared the space of a bedroom again, it would be too soon.

No, Loki left Thor’s apartment alone.

It was five days later, when Loki finally caught Thor hovering between meetings. It was noon. The sun, high in the sky, cast minimal shadows in the hallway of an unfamiliar apartment complex, shimmering bright on the granite floor.

His brother looked abandoned in the hallway, as if he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten there. A Midgardian phone sat in one of his hands, and he turned it on every few seconds and stared at it, only to turn it off again and let it hang at his side. Every so often, he glanced wistfully at one particular apartment door.

He looked—awkward and lonely.

It was as good a time as any. Loki approached.

Even though Thor looked restless and agitated, he still didn’t notice Loki’s presence, until Loki stood only a few feet away from him and lightly coughed to draw attention. Thor’s head jerked towards him (jumpy, Loki thought), and his expression froze into something particularly unreadable.

Loki sunk his hands into his pockets. “Hey,” he murmured.

At last, Thor took a step forward. His arms widened with the looming foreshadow of a hug— _their chests pressed against each other, a crowd watching, Loki circled his arms around his brother’s torso to keep Thor close, to keep his head down, so that he wouldn’t see every single party-goer’s eyes on them_ —and Loki took a startled step back.

Hurt flickered in Thor’s eye, but it faded under a quick, forced smile. He didn’t move any closer. “Loki, it’s good to see you,” Thor said. “I was worried that . . . that you . . .”

His brother’s sentence trailed off, and Loki wondered. Was he worried that Loki would leave? That maybe they would never see each other again? It sounded like wishful thinking. Loki squinted his eyes, but he couldn’t read Thor as he’d been able to in the past, he couldn’t tell if Thor was sincerely or insincerely polite in his company. The fact that he couldn’t tell amplified his insecurity into a giant web of doubt.

It was only the Valkyrie’s promise that kept his feet planted where they were, his arms locked at his sides, his mind set on a rehearsed question. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Loki said. “Are you busy?”

Thor’s mouth opened. Then he paused, glanced down the hallway, and checked the device in his hand again. “I’m waiting for a friend,” he said. “We’re supposed to spar.”

Ah. The Captain then. Loki had spied them sparring near every day this week. “I see,” he said. His chest tightened, and his vocal cords strained and tangled, imagining Thor with his friends, smiling and laughing, and—moving on. Loki took a half-step away. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No,” Thor breathed, “no, wait.”

Loki stopped. He didn’t look at Thor.

“Maybe we could have dinner tonight,” Thor suggested.

He looked at Thor, whose expression remained passionately blank. Loki wanted to say yes, he thrummed with the word, but he also didn’t want to steal a dinner from his brother over pity. “You’re clearly busy,” Loki said, waving a hand. “It’s not important.”

“No,” Thor said. “Not busy—”

“Well, you are right now,” Loki snapped. He started away.

“Loki, wait—”

The shadow of Thor’s hand stretched towards Loki’s arm, but it never connected. Instead, Thor raced enough steps ahead to block Loki’s path, keeping, Loki noted with upset, a generous distance between them. As if an invisible wall stood, barring them from touch. As many times as Thor tried to breach it, as many times as he _chose_ not to, the wall thickened.

Path blocked, Loki pressed his lips together and looked wearily at his brother. “What?”

“I _want_ us to talk,” Thor said. He must have seen something in Loki’s expression, for his gaze hardened, his voice louder. “I _do_. Let me call Steve Rogers, and I’ll—”

Warmth crept along the back of Loki’s neck, as he saw Thor lift the device as if to do just that. “No, it’s fine,” he cut in. “Dinner?”

Thor’s face brightened. “Yes,” he said in a soft, pleading voice. “If you agree.”

Slowly, Loki nodded.

Relief so strong and vibrant flooded across Thor’s face. His hand flexed, and the muscles in his arms strained, as if he longed to reach forward. “Alright,” he said. His brow furrowed. “Where should we—where do you want to meet?”

Loki resisted the urge to shrug. He _did not_ want to end up in Thor’s room, and his brother was frustratingly uncreative. “There’s a restaurant across the street that has outdoor tables,” he said. “Maybe we could meet there?”

Thor nodded. “And . . . would you like me to—to bring anything? Or, is there anything you’d prefer I do—or not do?” His gaze brewed with a storm of emotions—caution, unease, nervousness—and from a lifetime of knowing Thor, Loki could tell his brother was struggling for a way to avoid the elephant in the room.

Loki gave him a small, crooked smile. “You could bring the Grandmaster,” he said, careful to gauge Thor’s expression and modify the sarcasm in his tone accordingly. “He’s quite pleasant company, and I hear he just _loves_ fine cuisine. If we’re good, he might even invite us to a party.”

“You can stop that,” Thor said with a smile, and before either of them could think, he gave Loki’s shoulder a light shove.

Loki stiffened, and Thor’s hand withdrew too soon, and an awkward silence filled too long a moment afterward. But the weight of the wall between them lessened, and Loki wasn’t sorry to see it go.

The device in Thor’s other hand gave a light buzz and blinked in notification. They both glanced at it.

“Enjoy your sparring,” Loki said, forcing himself to relax. “See you at seven?”

“Yes, seven.” Thor smiled at him. It wasn’t the bright, sunny smile he’d shown around his friends, but it looked sincere and full and less troubled than before. Loki nodded his goodbye, before turning to leave and fret for six more hours.

...

After ordering and receiving their food, they chose a table at the far end of the outdoor gated area, far away from any others to watch them or listen. Loki chose the seat that put his back to a pillar surrounded by tall bushes; with every passer-by in sight, he wouldn’t possibly be surprised. Without pause, Thor took the seat opposite him.

The sun hung low in the sky near the crest of the mountains and flooding the sky with dull blues and purples and hints of looming pinks dancing along the clouds. Evening wind sailed through the bushes and between the bars of the gate, carrying a din of voices blurring wordlessly together.

Under the promise of anonymity, Loki felt his body relax of tension, allowing him to pull his plate closer and begin to eat. They sat like that for ten minutes, Thor taking sips from his cup of beer, and Loki cleaning his plate with delicate, tiny bites.

Eventually, Loki gathered enough courage to start the conversation, as Thor clearly wouldn’t. He took his mug and swallowed a sip of tea. “How was sparring?”

Thor blinked at him. “Oh, that? It was fine,” he said, waving his hand. “The usual.”

He trailed off oddly, and Loki gave him a critical look-over. Bruises and scabs covered Thor’s knuckles, more than the simple wear and tear of sparring, and he wondered what Thor had really been punching. The boxing equipment the Captain often used? Unlikely to harm an Asgardian. Loki would wager on something more like a brick wall.

Blind to Loki’s observations, Thor fidgeted with the napkin binding his silverware. “So, you wanted to talk?”

And Loki did. He wanted to ask how Thor had been, he wanted to know if Thor was healing, if Loki was alone in these terrible memories that refused to ease away. He wanted to know if they would ever hug again.

It was too hard to speak of such things, so Loki set down his mug and reached for his abandoned fork and knife. “Nothing specific,” he lied. “It’s just been a while. Thought maybe we should catch up.”

Thor’s eye brightened, and Loki felt a twinge of embarrassment shine in his cheeks.

Smartly, Thor didn’t make a big deal of it. “Are you doing well?”

With a shrug, Loki returned his gaze to his plate and focused on cutting a bite free. “Are you?”

A pause, in which Thor wound strands of spaghetti around his fork. It was his first meal all day—Loki had watched—and this was the first bite he’d taken since they had sat down ten minutes ago. The plate was full of untouched food, and it was unlike Thor, _so_ unlike Thor that Loki began to worry in earnest. Especially when Thor stalled answering his question by chewing slower than he ever had their entire lives.

With a sigh, Loki set down his fork. “Thor,” he said, “I want to talk about what happened.”

Thor managed to swallow, but his face went rather pale. Still, he didn’t look surprised.

“The Valkyrie has suggested that we do so, ever since we escap—arrived here,” he re-worded at the tight look in Thor’s face. “She thought it would help if we both knew where we stood with each other. Whether we can stomach seeing each other at all, or whether,” he said, throat swelling at the thought, “whether we part ways.”

Thor’s gaze darted to his, but Loki couldn’t read the emotion there—longing or fear.

Loki wrung his hands around the cool porcelain of his mug, inhaling the steam of the tea, a scent so different from any drink served on Sakaar. “So?” he breathed. “Do you—is it better if I leave?”

“What?” Thor gasped. “You can’t really mean—” His brother cut off in a puff of air, and his fists hooked around the edge of the table, squeezing until his knuckles turned white, straining the scabs there. “Of course I don’t want you to leave.”

Loki exhaled sharply. He hadn’t been sure.

“Loki, I . . .” Thor squeezed the table with renewed vigor until suddenly he let go to rest his elbows aside his plate instead, hands lacing together, head leaning forward against his thumbs. “I know I’ve been distant,” he said, “and I’m sorry.”

The apology locked walls around Loki’s heart. He turned his eyes to the tea beneath him. Muted greens swirled, and the aroma flared through his nostrils.

“I _am_ ,” Thor repeated. “I never meant to make you feel—that I disliked your presence. I just thought . . . that maybe seeing me would be difficult for _you_.”

At that, Loki shot his brother a look. “Difficult for me?”

Thor winced. “You said you wanted space.”

Somewhere, in the reclusive bounds of his heart, Loki had hoped Thor had forgotten. His hands started to shake. He set down his mug and clenched his hands around his knees, under the table, and out of sight. “I never said that,” he lied.

“Yes, you did,” Thor said. “You told me, the day we,” he scrambled for the word, “arrived on Earth. Right after I convinced the Avengers to leave you be. We were alone after, and you looked at me, and you said—”

“I said to _give_ me space,” Loki said. “I didn’t say I _wanted_ space.”

Thor’s eye narrowed. “Is there a difference?”

Loki opened his mouth to speak, but his brother didn’t wait.

“You expect me to read into your every single word,” Thor went on, “and try to decipher hidden meanings?” He shook his head with a sardonic smile. “Loki, I’m tired of these games. We spent months and months in that sick man’s company, and every day I had to _guess_ at what you wanted, I had to guess at what was preferable between one torment I couldn’t protect you from and another torment I could cause you. So when we were finally free, and you told me what you wanted for the first time—to give you _space_ —then that was what I—”

“You weren’t the only one,” Loki hissed.

The words spilled from his tongue without thought to consequence, with only the intent to silence Thor, and hearing them, Loki snapped his jaw shut and stared at his trembling hands in his lap. He hadn’t meant to say it. On Sakaar, Thor had always been so terribly smothering in his guilts and regrets, and after a time, Loki had tried his damned hardest to play into the willing, submissive, _happy_ role—just to avoid seeing Thor’s guilt-struck face.

When Loki spied a look, he saw Thor’s same guilt-struck face now. Brows furrowed. Jaw clenched. Exhausted hollow rage in his overprotective gaze.

Loki sighed.

He didn’t want to argue about _this_.

“There were times,” Loki said, tone soft and eyes lowered, “that I could have gotten out of doing it with you. But I didn’t. Because I knew the alternative would hurt you more, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t watch you suffer.” He paused to work moisture through his drying throat. “It wasn’t my choice to make, but I made it anyway, and I never asked for your preference. It was—selfish of me.”

Thor didn’t quite reach for Loki, but his hand drifted across the glass surface, inches away from Loki’s side of the table. In plain reach for Loki to close the distance and hold his hand if he wanted—a child’s wish.  “Loki,” Thor said, gentle.

Focused on his lap, Loki shook his head. “I asked you for space, because it was the right thing to do. I’ve hurt you, and whether or not you hold me accountable—”

“Loki,” Thor said, louder.

Loki looked at him.

“The Grandmaster hurt us,” Thor said. “You didn’t do anything.”

Scoffing, Loki returned his gaze to his lap.

Thor sighed. “So do you blame me? For the times that I . . . that I had to . . .”

After waiting in vain for Thor to finish his sentence, Loki shook his head. “That’s not the same.”

A deflated, tired chuckle fell from Thor’s lips. “How is it any different?”

There were many reasons, many failings on his part. The decision to debase himself for the Grandmaster in the first place. The failure to trick his way out of it, again and again. But Thor would contest every single one of his reasons, and Loki didn’t want to argue in accusation of himself. Instead, he refocused on the original point. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s up to you.”

Thor frowned, as if he wasn’t sure which line of thought to pursue. “What’s up to me?” he finally asked.

“What to do,” Loki said. “Whether we talk to each other again like normal, or whether we don’t.”

Thor’s frown hardened. “Well, what do you want? You haven't said.”

And Loki didn’t dare answer that question. He didn’t dare open his mouth and spill his heart—he missed Thor, he missed Thor searching for him when he hid, he missed Thor’s forceful hugs and playful gibes, he missed Thor clasping his neck in camaraderie, he missed Thor shaking his shoulders when he disagreed, he missed _everything_ —because he was terrified that Thor would look him straight in the eye and tell him those things weren’t possible anymore.

When Loki didn’t answer, Thor puffed out a frustrated breath. “I want to try,” Thor said. “To be normal around each other again.”

Loki’s heart thudded in hopeful relief.

“But I don’t want to hurt you,” Thor added. “I don’t want to make it worse.”

“You won’t make it worse,” Loki breathed, but Thor looked doubtful. “I’m fine, Thor. I swear it.”

Thor watched him for a moment longer, and Loki forced every muscle in his face to still, to relax. He had one shot at erasing Thor’s guilt, long enough for Thor to trust him, to see that the damage was over with and forgotten and a return to what was wouldn’t harm him any further. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)

Whatever he saw, Thor looked convinced, at least for the moment.  “Alright,” he said. “Then we’ll try.”

Loki felt a small smile spread through his lips. “Good,” Loki said. “Now eat before your food goes cold.”

Thor did.

They talked for two full hours, until the sun dipped behind the mountains, mosquitos fell away to crickets and moths, and clouds spread like ghosts across the sky, muting the twinkle of an occasional star. It was a warm night. The breeze was chilly enough to soothe the humidity, but the sun had baked the air just enough for such a chill to be pleasant.

Loki listened to Thor’s recent dealings with the Avengers, and his life and habits in general, and he even provided a few of his own stories—leaving out his near nightly habit of finding someone, the Valkyrie mostly, to fuck.

They talked until Thor’s plate was barren of food, and his eye was bright, and his smiles came easily.

It was like the old times, the ancient times—the times in their youth before resentment had built into an endless spiral of bitter plots and revenge. A small taste of their childhood. When Thor would laugh at his jokes, instead of mock them; when Loki would make a joke without seeking to offend.

At some point, they rose. Loki piled their dishes and carried them to the return-tray, and Thor crossed to the edge of the restaurant’s confines. Where the warm night air rustled through the nearby bushes, the hum of summer cicadas molded with the song of crickets, and the smell of thick rain hung stale in the air.

“Have you been staying somewhere nearby?” Thor asked as Loki approached. “I could walk you there.”

Loki imagined Thor at his doorstep, and guessed there was maybe half a chance Thor would want to be invited inside. Alone, in a room together, with a bed close-by—it didn’t sound like a tempting option. Not after all the progress they’d made tonight.

“Thank you,” Loki said, thinking of a plausible lie, “but it’s late. I like to be alone for a while before bed.”

Thor’s eye dimmed, but only slightly. “Then I’ll see you again soon?”

“Yes,” Loki said. “I’d like that.”

Thor smiled. Bright as the sun.

In the blur of the moment, Loki leaned towards his brother, and, without hesitating, without pausing, without wincing, Thor slipped a hand around Loki’s neck, cupping his jaw like he used to. Thor’s palm was warm and soft and smooth, and in the same blur of the moment, Loki turned to press his lips against the veins of Thor’s wrist in a mindless, sensual kiss.

The second he did so, he realized his mistake.

He flinched away at the exact moment that Thor yanked his hand to his chest, as if burned.

The two habits, habits of brothers and habits of bedmates, had converged into one tangled, twisted ball of shame. Chills rolled in tremors down Loki’s arms to the ends of his fingertips. At the same time, red flushed in his cheeks, and hot, horrified tears gathered in his eyes.

Thor wasn’t looking at him. He held his afflicted hand to his chest and stared at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Loki said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Thor’s eye squinted and blinked as he struggled to absorb the words.

“Thor,” Loki breathed. The tears burned. His throat ached. “It was just habit. I’m sorry.”

Still not looking at Loki, Thor shook himself. “I know,” he said, waving his hand in acknowledgment. “I know. It’s fine. It’s alright.” He gave Loki a curt smile that suddenly failed to wrinkle the corners of his eyes. “I understand.”

But it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t alright.

The surrounding tables and abandoned dishware morphed into the cushions and transparent decanters of Sakaar. Party-goers chiming their glasses together, some clothed, some unclothed, some murmuring quiet, delighted conversations, and the others howling in passionate, rhythmic moans. His brother’s hand, gripping Loki’s shoulder, thumb digging into his collarbone, as he thrust—thrust—thrust. Thor’s spend shooting into Loki’s ass and leaking down his thighs, and the Grandmaster clapping. Laughing.

“ _Kiss him_ ,” the Grandmaster had said. “ _He did so well. It’s worth one, uh, one kiss, isn’t it?_ ”

Defeated, Loki had sat up, pressed his mouth to his brother’s mouth, and sucked on Thor’s pliant lips—until the Grandmaster had allowed them to stop. It was just their mouths. Just skin and saliva and warmth. It hadn’t mattered.

Loki blinked himself back to the present. It certainly mattered now.

He stepped away from Thor.

“I,” he started, breath short and stiff. “I need to go.”

After one step down the street, Thor reached for him. “Loki, wait. Please.”

Loki did wait. But Thor’s hand never closed around his shoulder like it might have months ago. Or even minutes ago. It hovered in the air, inches away, and Loki ached at the gap between them.

After a moment, Thor’s hand fell to his side. He swallowed noisily. “I don’t know how to make this right,” he said. “I want to—I want us to be like we were. No,” he rushed at Loki’s expression, “Not the way we were in our youth. I know we’ve both changed. Even just—before what he made us do. I want . . . I want to be brothers again.”

Loki pressed his lips together and gave Thor a look absent of hope. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he said. Because Thor couldn’t say it if he said it first.

Before Thor could argue (or worse, agree), Loki rushed through the spaces between dimensions and deposited himself, alone and hollow, in his bedroom, on his bed. Tears slid down his face. He laid back on the dull grey comforter and stared at the plain white ceiling, wondering if that was the last time he’d ever spend with Thor again.

As far as last times went, it hadn’t been bad.

…

The Valkyrie found him the next morning.

Loki recognized her footsteps coming up the stairs to his apartment, and he froze on his couch, arms locked around his knees, breath held just in case, while she rapped against the wooden door. He hoped she would just leave after long enough of a silence, but she didn’t. “I know you’re in there,” she said. “Open up.”

It took effort to consider the possibility of letting her in, because he knew, without a flicker of doubt, that she was here because Thor had talked to her.

But she wasn’t going away.

Loki sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Give me five minutes,” he called through the door and the knocking stopped.

With a worn breath, Loki went to inspect himself in his bathroom mirror. After spending the entire night scrubbing tears from his face, his eyelids had become puffy and red. There was not much he could do for that. The circles under his eyes, however, were not hopeless. Loki delayed as long as he could, freshening his appearance and using cream to diminish the bruise-like, sleepless coloring around his eyes.

After ten minutes, the rapping started again.

“Alright, alright,” Loki muttered as he returned to the living room and threw open the door.

And that was how he ended up curled up in an armchair, in the living room, across from the Valkyrie on the couch, and two cups of untouched tea between them. Loki was too shaky to drink right now, though the act of making it had helped, and the Valkyrie had taken one taste of hers before scrunching her nose in obvious displeasure. It wasn’t personal; he knew she disliked tea, or rather any drink without a concentration of alcohol.

“So,” the Valkyrie said, “you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Loki said dryly.

She leaned forward, chin in her hands, elbow on her knees. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Loki locked his hands around the wooden arms of the chair and squeezed with all his might. “You don’t need to be subtle. I’m sure Thor has already filled you in on the details.”

The Valkyrie shrugged. “I’m not trying to be subtle. I want to hear it from you.”

“I’m sure,” Loki said, coldly, “that whatever he told you was exactly what happened.”

Because it would be. He could picture it now—Thor, disgusted and horrified, storming away from the restaurant in search of a friend to listen. So that he could reveal just how _sick_ Loki was. How Thor, empathetic, loving brother, had struggled to reach out and heal the broken bond between them, only to have it thrown in his face because Loki couldn’t keep his mouth to himself.

How Thor would forever lie awake at night, haunted by the fact that Loki wanted to be fucked by him again ( _raped_ , he thought, _raped_ ).

There was no fixing this, because it was the truth. It was. It _was_.

And certain that she knew, Loki wondered what the Valkyrie was even doing here. When he looked, he found her staring at him, and her expression was utterly opaque.

Loki glared at her. “What?”

She sighed. “You’re not going to believe me when I say this.”

“Just say it,” Loki hissed.

She shifted her gaze to the warm grey curtains, hanging over the window beside them, blocking all stray beams of light from passage into the dim living room. “Thor didn’t actually tell me what happened,” she said.

Annoyingly, she’d been right; Loki didn’t believe her.

“He told me you talked, that it was going well enough until something happened at the end,” the Valkyrie said. “He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he insisted that he had done something to ruin everything. Something unforgivable, he said, but who knows, he was drunk. Anyway, I honestly just came over to make sure you were okay.”

Stunned silent, Loki frowned with sincere confusion.

“I take it that’s not what happened then?”

“That’s the farthest thing from what happened,” Loki said. “It’s—absurd. He didn’t do anything. I’m the one who—” He cut off.

The Valkyrie had one eyebrow raised and a half-smile playing along her mouth. Her entire expression said in clear, smug terms, _I thought you didn’t want to tell me._

Despite himself, Loki felt his face soften and the corners of his lips quirk. “A good effort,” Loki said. “You almost had me.”

“Almost,” the Valkyrie agreed. She crossed her legs, leaned back in her chair, and her smile shifted into a grim line. “I mean what I said though. Thor was a total mess last night. Barely coherent. Not that I haven’t been there, sure, but still. Whatever happened, he thinks it’s his fault. He’s worried he won’t see you again.”

Loki shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d spent a long time last night considering just that. “Maybe he won’t see me again. Maybe it’s for the best.”

The Valkyrie stared at him for a long moment before she shook her head. “It sounds like you’re trying your hardest to convince yourself of that.”

Shrugging, Loki focused on a stray thread in his chair and picked at it mindlessly.

“You think your presence reminds him of the Grandmaster,” the Valkyrie said, and the name prickled the hairs along the base of Loki’s neck. “You think that being around him, talking to him, laughing with him makes him re-live what he went through. So you decide that it’s best if you leave him alone. Even though you want nothing more than to see him, you keep yourself away because you don’t want to hurt him.”

Loki inhaled a heavy, sharp breath through his nose. Worn and exhausted, he met her gaze, wishing that she would just go away or at least offer a quick fuck. Not do this. Not rip apart his masks and tug at the single strand of truth woven within. “What makes you think that?” he said, even though it was clearly not a denial.

“Because,” she said, lifting her chin, “it’s exactly what Thor says about you.”

Loki’s heart lurched in his chest.

Unable to stomach her stare, he lunged to his feet and paced across the room, to the window, where he slipped a hand under the curtain and unveiled a crack for him to see outside. He couldn’t look beyond the imperfections of the glass, to the outside world where the sun surely blazed from a cloudless sky—he was too conscious of the Valkyrie staring at his back.

She sighed. “Listen. If you can’t talk to him, then you shouldn’t. No one’s making you.”

At the phrasing, a flinch threatened to spill through his shoulders, and Loki barely kept it contained.

“But if you want to make it work, then you have to be honest with him. You’re both so worried about what the other really wants that you’re forgetting to decide for yourselves.”

Loki pressed his lips together, tight and furious, and his knuckles went white around his grip on the curtain. It wasn’t her business. He wanted to shout it at her, but he couldn’t. All he could do was open his mouth and shudder through an inhale— “He won’t listen.”

“Hmm?”

The image came to mind, of Thor’s guilt-struck face. Brow furrowed. Jaw clenched. Tired, protective rage. Loki swallowed. “He decides what’s best for me, and he doesn’t believe me when I tell him he’s wrong.” A bitterness crept into his voice, quivering in his chest. “He’s always done that, since we were children.”

The Valkyrie’s clothes rustled audibly as she stood. “Then tell him to stop.”

Already, Loki was shaking his head. “He won’t listen.”

“He would, and you know it. He’d do anything to have a chance to speak with you again. He’s ready to listen, you just need to tell him.”

Loki’s lips locked shut. He couldn’t risk it.

It was better, wasn’t it? To pretend to know what Thor wanted? To leave Thor alone before he damaged them further?

“Loki,” the Valkyrie said, her voice firm as rock. “Do you want him to be your brother again or not?”

He wanted, craved, ached for it, but—could they be brothers after what he’d done? Loki had let Sakaar happen; he’d all but caused it. he’d debased himself for the Grandmaster, never arguing, never fighting, never finding a way to escape. If he had, then maybe they would have never been captured and forced into each other’s beds in the first place. He should have known it would escalate beyond his control. He should have known, he should have—

( _Not your fault_ , his thoughts soothed in a voice that sounded like Thor’s. _Not your fault._ )

He stared at the smudges on the window pane with no answer to give.

For a long time, she waited.

Then her boots thumped across the carpet until she was behind him, her breath ghosting along the fabric of his shirt. When Loki turned, he found her holding out a shred of parchment with a series of digits scrawled in messy handwriting. He didn’t take it, so the Valkyrie took his hand and forced the paper into his palm.

“This is his phone number,” she said. “You don’t have to call him, but he wanted to give you the choice.”

Loki stared at his fist, crumpling the paper.

Sighing, the Valkyrie turned to leave. Over her shoulder, she gave him a glance, full of sympathy. It hurt to look at. “If you do call him,” she said softly, “don’t decide for him. Trust him to decide for himself.”

Without waiting for him to agree or even nod, she left—giving him his wish to be alone and leaving him with an even greater one.

…

It took the full day to swallow his nerves and retrieve his phone from an unused drawer where it had been collecting dust. He honestly was surprised it still worked when he turned it on and dialed the eleven numbers into the screen.

The speakers rang, and Loki prayed that it would go to voicemail, but Thor answered on the first ring.

“ _Yes?_ ”

Loki swallowed. He’d forgotten how to speak.

“ _Hello?_ ”

His breath trembled out of him.

Immediately Thor’s voice softened. “ _Loki? Is that you?_ ”

“Yes,” he said, and his hands started shaking. If only Thor could guess what he wanted, too.

The silence over the phone was deafening. Loki could both think of a million things to say and nothing to say at all. He listened to Thor breathing on the other end, the only sign that Thor hadn’t ended the call the moment he knew who it was. Somehow, a kinder, less anxious part of Loki wondered if the Valkyrie was right about Thor—if his brother sat on the other end, terrified and mindless and restless.

Norns, Loki hoped so. He steeled himself with a deep breath. “I want to keep trying,” he said, before he could change his mind. “Like at dinner, the other night. I want to try again, until we can . . . move past it.”

The words were like a dam bursting, unleashing a surge of emotions that rolled through his veins at the speed of light.

He kept speaking. “I wasn’t thinking when I kissed you, and I think that’s the problem. It’s hard to relax around you because I’m worried that I’ll do something—something like that. Something by accident. It didn’t upset me that it happened,” he added softly. “It only upset me because it upset you.”

Loki’s nerves wound tight, hitching on Thor’s every breath. He should stop. He should end the call and bury the phone in the drawer and never speak to his brother again.

Then Thor said, “ _I wasn’t upset._ ”

Loki bit the inside of his mouth. “You _looked_ upset.”

“ _I wasn’t_ ,” Thor said quickly. “ _Not because of that. It was because . . . Loki, I shouldn’t have touched you like that in the first place. It was my fault._ _I’m sorry._ ”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m tired of you treating me like glass,” Loki said into the phone. “I want you to relax around me. I want you to stop hesitating and second-guessing everything you do around me. You’ve always been affectionate, and now you’re not, and _that’s_ what makes everything worse.”

A long silence.

Loki’s breath came in short, airy puffs, and so he forced his lungs to fill completely. Then he sat down and planted one hand on the table to ground himself. Adrenaline shot through his veins, his heart pumping blood, his muscles tensing, but there was nowhere to run, no fight to be had. He shivered. It tainted his breath.

“ _I didn’t realize,_ ” Thor said at last. His voice sounded torn.

“Well?” Loki asked. “Do you agree?”

Thor hesitated. “ _It’s not that simple. I can’t touch you or hug you without it being sexual, and I can’t do that to you—_ ”

Loki’s sinuses throbbed. His hands writhed with the urge to slam the phone on the table and run. He buried the feelings. “You’re doing it again. You’re deciding for me what I can and can’t handle, and you’re not listening when I say I’m fine,” Loki said, remembering the Valkyrie’s advice to be direct. “I need you to take me out of it and tell me what _you_ want. And only what you want.”

Thor’s breath held on the other end for so long that Loki had to check that the call was still in progress. Eventually, his brother spoke. “ _I want to keep trying, too._ ”

Loki closed his eyes and exhaled. His chest thawed in relief.

“ _But what do we do?_ ” Thor asked. “ _Every time we try, it goes wrong. How do I know if touching your shoulder or patting your back will be taken sexually? How can we fix this?_ ”

“You don’t have to worry about how I react,” Loki said as he shivered. “I promise you. It’s only sexual for me if we have sex.”

Thor hummed in vague acknowledgment on the other end.

“Alright?” Loki asked.

“ _Alright,_ ” Thor said, but he sounded uncertain.

Sighing, Loki considered how to convince him. “When does it feel sexual to you?”

A pause. “ _Always,_ ” Thor breathed. “ _But that’s just because . . . because . . ._ ”

Loki waited, but Thor didn’t finish. He gripped his phone tightly, and said, “Because we’re used to having sex?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Thor said slowly. “ _That._ ”

“That’s what it’s like for me.” Loki swallowed his nerves. “We just need to practice. We need to spend time together, doing normal things, things we used to do, over and over, until it feels normal again. And then, it’ll get easier . . . It won’t feel sexual anymore.” He tried not to sound like he was convincing himself.

At last, Thor's breath started to even on the other end of the line.

“Is that something you’re willing to try?” Loki asked. The hand he planted on the table trembled in waves.

“ _We could watch a movie,_ ” Thor said. “ _Tomorrow evening. At my place. If you want to._ ”

Loki considered. He’d wanted to avoid Thor’s quarters, but he worried that if he voiced a complaint now, then he would never have this chance again. Somehow Thor had let go of the guilt long enough to listen to him. To trust him. And Loki didn’t want to miss the opportunity, even if the idea of being anywhere near a bedroom in his brother’s company unsettled him in his gut.

He pressed his lips together. A living room was different from a bedroom. There’d been no difference on Sakaar, but there was every difference here, and if he kept running, kept hiding from these memories, then eventually they would swallow him whole. He released a breath. “Yes. I want to,” he said, certain and firm as he could. “Do you want to?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Thor said, sounding more assured than he had in months.

Tension fell from Loki’s shoulders. For the first time, he dared to hope that they’d make this right.

…

As promised, they met the next night at Thor’s door.

Loki had taken one sweeping look through the living room before entering. Even though it was an absurd fear, he couldn’t help the relief that thumped through him when he found that there was no bed in the living room, no lure of a soft mattress nor velvet sheets nor silky pillows. At Thor’s beckoning, he stepped inside and toed out of his shoes.

It was late, well past dinner, but Loki glanced at the kitchen anyway to ensure there were used empty plates in the dish stand, to confirm that Thor had, in fact, eaten.

On his way further inside, he spied that the door to the bedroom was open, and the corner of the mattress was just visible. Stiffening, Loki took three giant steps over and closed the door without looking inside.

When he turned, he found Thor staring at him uneasily, so he forced himself to relax. “I’d rather not see the bed,” he said, honestly.

Thor nodded.

Loki waited for the surge of guilt, for the suggestion that they shouldn’t do this, that they were pushing themselves too hard, but it never came. With remarkable control over his expression, Thor strolled over to the couch and gestured to a stack of movies.

Curious, Loki approached.

“These were the ones recommended,” Thor said. He didn’t mention the Avengers, which Loki appreciated.

Loki browsed through them. Many of them looked boring and underdeveloped, especially compared to the taste of Asgard, but taste was not what he was looking for. There was one that looked just dull enough to not have any romantic or sexual scenes at all. It was the one he snatched from the pile and held out to his brother.

Thor smiled. “I’m glad,” he said softly, “that we’re doing this.”

Warmth rushed through Loki’s cheeks, and he ducked his head. “Shut up and put the disc in,” he said, but his voice was teasing.

Thor’s fist went to give him a quick, playful punch to the shoulder, but he paused, hesitating. Then, their gazes met, and Thor followed through with the motion. It was stiff and awkward, but it wasn’t the point. The point was that Thor had trusted him. The point was that they were trying.

Loki felt his entire body relax.

A few pleasantries later, they sat on the couch, and the movie started.

The bright light sent odd shadows across the floor and the coffee table, all the way up to their legs where the television glinted in a blue sheen over the leather of their clothes and their showing skin. They were sitting close enough for their knees to touch, and as the movie played, the contact lessened and lessened in discomfort.

Minutes passed. Gradually Loki started to scoot closer to his brother. The added contact of their thighs stretched their tolerance, and though Thor started to fidget with his hands in his lap, he didn’t move away.

Minutes more, and Thor swung an arm around Loki and pulled him in to rest on his shoulder. Loki tucked his head under Thor’s chin, and tried to pretend that every warm breath puffing from Thor’s lips didn’t wind through his hair, trailing disgusted want down his forehead, raising unwilling goosebumps along his neck. He ignored the disconnected lust of his body and forced his eyes on the television. Tried to engage with the underdeveloped action hero and his flat, static love interest.

Tried not to feel Thor’s hand cupped around his arm, heavy and solid. Tried not to relish in the warmth where their hips touched.

Every inch of contact was torture.

But doing this was right. They’d never move beyond these habits, unless they forced themselves to create new memories of touch absent of sex ( _of rape_ , his mind insisted, more forcefully than usual). Tonight would be uncomfortable for both of them maybe—but it would be worth it days, weeks, or likely months down the line when Loki didn’t flinch every time Thor touched him and when Thor didn’t hesitate every time he reached.

Still, the fantasy of the future didn’t lessen the discomfort of the moment.

It was worth it, Loki promised himself in a mantra, it was worth it.

And then the hero and the love interest kissed (in an action movie; he’d chosen action to avoid just this), and though Loki felt nothing for the characters or the narrative at all, the sound of wet lips sucking wet lips, the sight of mouths touching, the radiated warmth of his brother beside him inflamed his lower abdomen and—and he felt his leather around his crotch grow tight.

Loki’s eyes darted to his lap and saw the evidence of his arousal making a bulge in his pants. Horrified guilt rushed through his veins. His heart thumped. Had Thor noticed? Loki needed to move, to leave, to get out of here, before Thor did notice, if he hadn’t already, but—standing now would be obvious. Standing at all would be obvious. Cheeks flaming red, Loki slipped his arms into his lap, artfully covering his crotch.

Beside him, Thor cleared his throat, and Loki’s heart dropped into his stomach, where it twisted with shame.

His brother’s shoulder jostled Loki’s head, as Thor reached for the remote and muted the television.

And Loki’s heart soared to his throat. _He knows_ , Loki thought, somehow both cold and hot at the same time. _He knows, and he’s pretending not to._

Still, Loki didn’t move. The scene played on, and once the two characters stopped kissing, once the action sequence continued, as if uninterrupted, Thor still didn’t lift the remote to unmute it. Subtitles replaced the sound.

Loki couldn’t breathe. If he’d thought engaging in the narrative before had been a challenge, then it was an impossibility now. His thoughts melted away. Thor’s hand on his shoulder seemed to scorch his skin beneath the fabric. His crotch ached to be touched and held and ridden, and—and if it was Sakaar—if it was Sakaar, then the Grandmaster would notice, and he would encourage Thor between his legs and—

“I’m sorry,” Thor said suddenly. “I can’t.” He released Loki’s shoulder and scooted away.

A lump—his heart maybe—clogged Loki’s throat, and he blinked back tears as he righted himself to face his brother. “Thor, I can’t control it, it just happened—”

He stopped.

Because getting a good look at his brother, he saw that Thor’s pants were dented at the crotch as well.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said again.

Blinking, Loki re-evaluated. Maybe Thor _didn’t_ know he had been aroused. With a surprising amount of courage, he removed his arms from his lap and struggled to endure the blush that burned in his cheeks. “It’s fine,” he said and gestured to himself. “See? Me too.”

Oddly, Thor looked even more guilty. “Norns,” he said softly. “This was a mistake.”

Loki’s heart stopped. He remained perfectly still.

“I forced you to come here and be with me, I forced you to sit so close to me, and now—now I’ve given us both—”

“Thor, stop it,” Loki said, almost shivering. “You didn’t force me to do anything.”

Thor’s head jerked up, his eye darting to Loki’s, furrowed and guarded.

“I wanted to come here tonight,” Loki breathed. “You know how easily I can avoid you if I wish.” He paused, long enough to see Thor’s expression soften, even if only a little. “Besides, we knew that this,” he went on, gesturing vaguely at their laps, “was a possibility. That’s the point, isn’t it? We—keep doing this, until—until it’s normal again. Yes?”

Slowly, Thor nodded.

“Then it’s fine,” Loki said. “Are you—do you need space? I can go—”

“No,” Thor said. He winced and his jaw snapped shut over the rushed word. A moment passed, before Thor released a held sigh. “You’re right. Of course. You’re sure though, that this isn’t too much?”

Thor trailed off, and Loki gave him a dim smile. “I’m sure. As long as it’s not for you.”

Tension rinsed out of Thor’s shoulders. He settled back to his spot on the couch and opened up his arm, inviting Loki in.

Relieved, Loki sank into his side.

With the remote, Thor unmuted the television at a much lower volume, and neither of them dared to rewind. Not with the chance that they would rewind too far and come across that dreadful kiss scene again. No, they let the movie play and watched in silence.

It didn’t get better, knowing Thor was just as ruined as he was. It got worse.

Thor’s thigh twitched periodically, and each tremor rolled through Loki’s own thigh like an omen. A prophecy. Even as his neck went stiff and rigid, Loki didn’t rest his head on Thor’s shoulder. He didn’t think he could bear Thor’s breath on his head.

Instead, Loki stared at the television, but his mind went far away, to the Grandmaster, to Sakaar—

_Where, with his teeth gritted and his hands clenched around Thor’s waist, Loki struggled to thrust into his brother’s ass a half-inch more, slow as he could, without losing control. The tightness brought stars to his eyes, flooding his body with complete and utter need. Slow, he reminded himself, slow. This was Thor’s first time. Slow, short thrusts forward. Through the gag, Thor moaned underneath him as he pushed another a half-inch inside._

_“Oh, sweetheart,” the Grandmaster said at his side. “You’re doing no one any favors with that pace. Come on, live a little.”_

_Ignoring this, Loki clenched his eyes shut and exhaled brokenly. It felt so good, he wanted to throw caution to the wind and fuck as hard as he pleased, but he couldn’t—he wouldn’t do that to Thor. He would never do that to Thor. He’d take it slow and build up to it, and Thor had better be forever grateful for his restraint later. (It shouldn’t feel this good.)_

_Somewhere, in the fuzz of his senses, the Grandmaster had escaped notice and slipped behind him. Loki startled at the feeling of cool hands circling his waist and breath on his neck. He lurched forward, hard and sudden, in Thor’s ass, and Thor released a strangled yelp. Loki forced himself to still._

_“You know, Lo,” the Grandmaster whispered into his ear. “I’m not used to being ignored.”_

_Nauseous with fear, Loki trembled._

_“I don’t really know how it makes me feel. Mmm, you know, actually? I do. It’s, uh, not fun. How about that?” With one hand, the Grandmaster stroked the underside of Loki’s jaw, curling fingers around Loki’s neck, and with the other, he caressed the pucker of Loki’s ass with something cold and thick and wet—lube._

_Loki whimpered. “Grandmaster, please, n—”_

_“That better not be a no.” The Grandmaster pressed his lips briefly, softly to Loki’s bare shoulder. “It really—really spoils the mood, you know? Such a horrendous word.” He paused. A finger slipped into Loki’s ass, and then a second—too fast, too much, too painful—but Loki knew better than to speak this time. He hissed a breath and tried to bear down, to open himself. “There,” the Grandmaster said, “there, that’s better.”_

_The Grandmaster spread him enough to take a third, and Loki gasped at the burn, sinking deeper into Thor before he could stop himself. Thor gasped with him._

_“Mmm, this will be fun, don’t you think?” The Grandmaster’s fingers disappeared and there was the sound of a bottle squeezing lube from its confines. “If we do it this way, you’ll both be experiencing this together. I’ll be, uh, I’ll be pleasing two birds with one stone.” He laughed at his joke, while Loki waited. Loki, who was trapped inside Thor. The Grandmaster’s hand was locked around his waist. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t—wouldn’t. He wouldn’t say no._

_The silence carried for a moment. Then Loki felt the thick head of the Grandmaster’s cock push up against his ass. It was too soon—he wasn’t open enough, not nearly—he almost sobbed from the anticipation. He could handle a little pain. Compared to other pains, this would be nothing. But if the Grandmaster fucked him, if the Grandmaster decided the pace while Loki had Thor helpless beneath him, then Thor—Thor would— “Please,” he begged, “please.”_

_“Hmm? Please what?”_

_“I’ll do anything else,” Loki breathed. An echo of his words from before._

_“Aww,” the Grandmaster said, “but we’ve already come so far, and you make this so tempting. I just, well, what can I say? I just can’t resist.”_

_Loki opened his mouth to beg again, when the Grandmaster, in one single movement, speared him open, in a jolt that shot all the way through his lips in a helpless moan—_

He couldn’t bear the memory any longer. He couldn't bear the infinite loop of _need_ in his chest, swollen and aching and tight, and he couldn’t bear the heat radiating off his brother’s skin in relentless, smothering beams.

He needed release.

Loki looked away from the television to Thor. Thor met his eyes.

They didn’t need words to communicate. They were comrades. Brothers. Bedmates by command. It was an unspoken question between them. An unspoken consideration that lasted for one long moment. It was just sex. It was just two bodies. It was just habit.

And he didn’t know whose gaze darted to whose lips or who drew in the tortured, needy breath. It wasn’t important.

Gazes upon one another, they made an unspoken decision.

 _Fuck it_ , Loki thought, and he leaned in towards Thor’s face. Thor closed the rest of the distance, and before either of them knew it, Loki was straddling Thor’s hips, and Thor’s arms locked around Loki’s waist, and their lips crashed together in a starvation that they’d never felt in all those months with the Grandmaster.

Loki ground his hips into Thor’s. The bulges in their pants pressed hot against one another, and Loki keened from the pleasure that soared through his limbs. More—he released each side of Thor’s face to hook his thumbs under the waistband of his pants. Thor caught on quickly. His brother’s hands yanked Loki’s pants down, and cold air met Loki’s bare ass. A shiver crawled all the way up his spine.

Thor’s rough broad hands massaged the cheeks of Loki’s ass as he peppered kisses along Loki’s neck.

Loki moaned at the ceiling.

The contact was otherworldly. Affection had been something they’d hated on Sakaar. They’d done it on command, apathetic and clinical and methodic. The bare minimum effort. Kissing only when instructed. Nothing more. Nothing to expose the fact that their traitorous bodies responded to each other’s at all.

Here, there were no limitations. Neither the Grandmaster nor any of his party-going guests watched. They were alone and free, in the comfort of Thor’s rooms. And Thor, his brother, his fucking _brother_ , was sucking love marks into his neck.

Loki wanted to cry.

From horror and disgust, or from blessed relief, he didn’t know.

He rocked his hips into Thor’s, until Thor stopped him with a heavy groan. They paused, long enough for Thor to kick out of his own pants and boxers, and Loki waited with little patience.

The pause was enough, though, for Thor to hesitate. “Wait,” he said, even as Loki urged Thor on top of him, on the couch. Thor’s weight pressed down on him, heavy and smothering but so, so good. Still, Loki waited. “This isn’t right,” Thor said, as his eye feasted over Loki’s lips, and his neck, and his erect cock.

Loki knew it wasn’t right. He also didn’t care. “We can stop if you want to,” he said, reluctant.

Thor considered this. “I _don’t_ want to,” he said and then looked at Loki with wide-eyed guilt. “Do _you_ want to stop?”

“No,” Loki said, shaking. “Thor, please. Please just—”

Descending, Thor slammed their lips together. His hand worked its way between their waists, his fingers brushed against Loki’s cock, and Loki moaned into Thor’s mouth, eyes clenched shut and hands digging into Thor’s hips. His ankles locked around his brother’s legs, gluing them together, and with his free hand, Thor raked through Loki’s black strands of hair, tearing through knots and clutching his scalp to deepen the kiss.

Thor became less Loki’s brother, and more an object of pleasure. Faceless. But willing.

They were both willing.

And, like clockwork, the rest of the flashback hurtled through him.

_Sobbing, Loki pressed his face to Thor’s bare chest, breathing in the smell of his brother, a smell that should have repulsed him, not comforted him. The Grandmaster pushed into him, again and again, and it hurt—it blared white stars in his vision, it sent cries through his mouth and tears down his cheeks, and he could only gasp for air between each stab of pain._

_And worse, was the way each thrust sent him deep into Thor’s ass, and out, and in again. His cock thrummed with fire at how tight and wet and tight it was, but while his body shuddered in delight, Loki felt no actual pleasure at the way Thor flinched with pain. And with each flinch, Thor’s body grew more rigid and tense, far too much so for his first time._

_Despite the tormenting pace, the Grandmaster carded delicate fingers through Loki’s hair. He murmured something that Loki couldn’t hear over the static in his ears, and when Loki didn’t answer, his weight pressed warm against Loki’s back._

_Somehow Loki was conscious enough to consider Thor, beneath him, breathing raggedly. Thor was gasping at the weight, and Loki, with great mental effort, settled his arms on the floor and raised himself, just enough to give Thor room to breathe. He resented this—resented having to be the one who took care of his brother when he was the one sandwiched between them and suffering both guilt and pain (and pleasure) alike._

_At the new angle, he saw the blindfold around Thor’s eyes was wet. His brother had been crying, too._

_Loki’s heart chilled, as his resentment evaporated away._

_“Aww, look, you’ve made him cry,” the Grandmaster said, and Loki wanted to whirl around and claw the Grandmaster’s sick eyes out, damning the consequences—but he had stopped thrusting, and Loki could only cling to this one single blessed moment of relief. “Loki, be a dear and take that off him, won’t you? It’s the least you can do after taking him so, uh, roughly.”_

_The humiliated rage pulsed ripe in his chest, but Loki was too tired for it. He lifted one shaking hand and worked at the blindfold tied shut at the base of Thor’s skull. Thor lifted his head to give Loki more room, but it remained stubbornly knotted. Cheeks bright red, Loki was forced to use both hands to undo the blindfold. He rested his entire weight on Thor’s chest, his chin bumping awkward against Thor’s._

_The cloth came away, and their eyes met._

_Loki looked away._

_“The gag, too, dear,” the Grandmaster said._

_Loki’s chest thudded. His fingers trembled as he did as commanded._

_When the gag fell to the floor beside the blindfold, Thor didn’t speak, as Loki feared. His lips pressed shut, and his jaw clenched, and he looked at Loki in misery—but not the accusing, hateful kind Loki was so used to seeing over the last few years. It was an empathetic, loving kind. A gaze that only two people with the same sort of suffering could share._

_“So sweet,” the Grandmaster hummed. “You two—you two just really care about each other, don’t you?”_

_The Grandmaster’s breathing was heavy against Loki’s spine, so Loki knew what was coming._

_Renewed with strength, Loki braced himself, elbows against the floor, knees planted beside Thor’s hips. This time, when the Grandmaster thrust into him, Loki refused to budge, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much he longed to let go, to fade into the safe recesses of his mind._

_His teeth ground into his lip, and his eyes clenched shut as he held his ground. The Grandmaster only fucked him harder._

_And harder._

_A brutal thrust, and his elbow slid with a painful squeak across the floor. And the Grandmaster was fucking Thor through him once more, and Thor was tense and groaning, and Loki couldn’t regain his balance. He tried. He tried, until the fight puffed out of him, and he could only bury his nose in the crook between Thor’s shoulder and neck._

_“I’m s-sorry,” he whispered, quiet for only Thor to hear, broken as the Grandmaster pushed into them again—and again. “I’m—ahh—sorry—I’m sorry.”_

_Between the gasps of pain, Thor choked out in strangled breaths at his ear, “Not—your—fault—”_

This time, the memory faded out like a dream, leaving him with his brother’s hand around their cocks, and an insurmountable wave of pleasure on the horizon. He could tell Thor to stop, if he wanted, but he didn’t. He dug his nails into Thor’s back and let the pleasure engulf him.

...

It was over in less than ten minutes.

They lay huddled on the couch in silence, save for the dull background murmur of the movie.

Thor was squashed against the back cushion, his strong arm curled around Loki’s waist to keep him from falling off the few inches of space remaining. On Sakaar, they’d grown used to cuddling in tight quarters, and instinct molded their bodies together. Still. It was different. Better maybe. If they wanted, they could get up and leave without fearing for the other’s life. If they stayed like this, it could only be because they wanted to.

With his cheek pressed against Thor’s chest, Loki could make out the flutter of a pulse. For some reason, it was that persistent, steady thump that drew tears to his eyes. He sniffled.

“What is it? Do you want to get up?” Thor asked. His grip on Loki’s waist loosened.

“No,” Loki said and lifted a hand to swipe his eyes. “That's the problem.”

He waited, but Thor never responded. Maybe he hated himself right now, too.

Choking on his breath, Loki clung to Thor’s chest—his brother’s steady presence grounding him, reminding him that they were _here_ , and not on Sakaar. “We had one rule today.” Loki struggled with another onslaught of tears. “Just one. Don’t have sex. That was it. And we’re so ruined that we couldn't even do that.”

Thor’s hand squeezed his waist in reassurance. “It's not the end of days,” he said, a voice of calm and reassurance. “We couldn't get it right this time, but we'll do better next time.”

Loki wanted to glare at his brother, but he was too tired, too worn, too broken with guilt. “How can you be so calm about this?” he asked in an empty monotone. He didn’t have the heart to shout. “After months of Sakaar, we finally are free. We don’t have to fuck each other anymore, and yet the first thing we do when we're alone is fuck.”

“Well,” Thor said, and his thumb rubbed circles into Loki’s hip bone. “It wasn’t the _first_ thing. At least we tried.”

Despite himself, Loki choked out a strangled sound, half-laugh, half-sob. It figured Thor would count their effort, even failed, as a victory.

“You weren't lying to me earlier, were you?” his brother asked in a whisper. “About wanting this?”

“Of course not,” Loki said miserably. “Were you?”

“No,” Thor said. He paused. “It was almost better. To do it like this, of our own free will, without his influence. It . . . helped. I think.”

Thor sounded surprised at that fact, and as Loki considered it, he realized, relieved, that he felt oddly cleansed as well. As if some of the filth and the shame and the guilt had been washed away and replaced with consent. As if retaking control of the sex between them, even if neither of them were attracted to each other in such a way, was what they had needed to heal all along.

Loki’s chest ached with hope. “Do you think we'll ever be brothers again?” he asked over the lump in the back of his throat.

With a sigh, Thor lifted his head to plant a brief fraternal kiss on Loki’s hair. “I think,” he said, “that we're brothers _now_. No matter what has been done to us. No matter what will happen. No one can take it from us.”

Loki closed his eyes and listened to the drum of his brother's heart. If he willed everything else away, he could try to believe it for a while. Maybe longer than a while.

Maybe long enough for it to become habit, once again.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://loxxxlay.tumblr.com) if you want because u better believe I'm writing more hands-on grandthorki, this is the tip of the iceberg lol


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